Throw Down (The King Brothers Book 1) Read online

I shove-slash-jam two slices of bread into the toaster, unable to drag Peyton King out of my head, to escape his sly smirk and, yes, stunning good looks.

  Damn him.

  I breathe in, breathe out.

  You saw that thing, I tell myself. It’s physically impossible anyhow. He’d split you in half.

  For a moment the rationalization works.

  On a purely mechanical level, we wouldn’t ‘fit.’

  Right?

  Yes?

  Of course.

  Still, that toe-to-head tingle at the mere thought of his touch is suggesting otherwise—primal, body betrayal of the highest order.

  *

  My boss Lewis, editor of the Crestfall Crimson, stands at the end of the boardroom table surveying us. “So, who wants to start?”

  It’s Monday morning and the last thing anyone wants to do is go first.

  Predictably, Lewis selects Amanda, his star writer (read: porn star turned penman). “’Manda, what you got?”

  She puckers her lips and pretends to look over her notes. She’s too perfect. You could slip her into the Barbie factory production line and no one would blink an eye. “I’m looking into the world of ‘hurtcore,’ an extreme form of porn based around pain, torture and humiliation, mostly related to children. As you know, Matthew Falder, a Cambridge academic, was jailed for thirty-two years for producing this material, with connections to the university, so I think it’s relevant to Crestfall.”

  Lewis nods with a finger on his pursed lips. He loves this edgy shit, thinks one of us is going to walk away with a Pacemaker, the Pulitzer of college journalism. I do have to hand it to Amanda. She always drums up the best stories, angles… I’ve only been here for a month but already it’s clear she’s hungry for it.

  Yeah, hungry for cock.

  I push that gutter-mouthed little voice away and concentrate.

  “Excellent,” says Lewis, “but run it past legal first, okay? It pays to be careful in this climate.”

  “Yes, boss.” She salutes, and I want to puke into my mug.

  Lewis’s attention turns to me. “Erin, how’s the piece on frat party culture coming along?”

  I’m not great at speaking in public. Even though there are only twenty of us in the room, I can’t help the grip that tightens around my throat. I clear it and speak. “Great. I attended one of the Greek parties last night, made some progress.”

  “You’ve got an angle?”

  Damn Lewis. It’s always about the angle.

  Only one thing comes to mind. “I think I’m going to focus on a particular individual, a sort of cult hero on campus.”

  Lewis spreads his arms out. “Tell us more.”

  Crap. “His name’s Peyton King, but everyone calls him…” I don’t know if I can actually say it. Say the words! my head screams. “’King Dong.’”

  Lewis laughs along with the rest of the room. “Not for his size of his doorbell, I imagine, but I like it. No names, though. Keep it relevant, and deep. Go deep.”

  I look across to Amanda, who’s holding an imaginary dick in one hand, her tongue pushing her cheek out while she watches me.

  I smile back.

  I’m going to prove I can be just as edgy as she is. Hell, I’m going over the edge this time, baby. Lewis wants a Pacemaker? I’m going to bring it home packaged with a bow.

  Lewis looks around the table. “Who’s next?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PEYTON

  I love a good fox hunt as much as the next guy with a silver spoon buried up his ass, but this particular hunt is proving most unfruitful.

  The girl I’m talking to — Heather, Hanna? Huge Tits? — is cradling her textbook low against her crotch. I swear to god she’s grinding against it as she thinks over my question, her eyes basically bursting out of her head at the sight of me. “Can you be a bit more specific?” she drawls, words strung together like she’s coming off a high.

  I sigh and remind myself detectives go through this fucking legwork every damn day of the week. Must get tiring. ‘You want results?’ my old high school coach used to say. ‘Put in the damn time.’

  “She’s about yay high,” I indicate with my hand, “not a freshman, really intense green eyes, kind of a southern Shakira?”

  An eyebrow goes up. Huge Tits is confused. “She’s South American?”

  I look to the sky and tell myself to breathe through it. “No, she’s… Her hair… Kind of curly, beach wavy… Fuck. Forget it,” I say, waving her off and walking.

  “You want to go out? Hang?”

  I ignore her, ignore the desperation in her voice. I might not remember her name, but I haven’t forgotten what she was like in the sack — a fucking sea slug would have more life.

  It’s shaping up to be a stunning day. The sky’s already a sharp, crystalline blue above. But instead of getting out there with the boys and enjoying it, what am I doing?

  Chasing down a fucking unicorn, my head fills.

  Erin.

  I haven’t been able to shake her out of my head, which is weird, and, frankly, uncharted territory. There was something about her reaction, her outright refusal to throw down, that took me off guard, and I’m never off guard — not on the grass, not anywhere in these hallowed halls of Crestfall Sports Academy.

  Huge Tits is the seventh girl I’ve spoken to this morning and none of them know this Erin. She’s definitely not a student, certainly not a mover and shaker in any social circles that matter, and most assuredly well clear of the cum-swallowing Kappa Nu. Given they know everything that happens here, that’s real interesting.

  “Case closed, Sherlock,” I whisper to myself as I walk. “She’s a ghost.”

  But even ghosts got to hang somewhere.

  “Peyton! See you tonight?”

  I glance at some long legs, halter top, box braids, but I can’t be bothered. I’m too focused on finding my unicorn.

  I swing into the Steam Room instead, the campus culinary hot spot-cum-café. It’s starting to bustle as everyone clambers in for their pre-lecture caffeine fix.

  I’m halfway to the counter when a voice pulls me up. “The great Peyton King. A little early for you around these parts, isn’t it?”

  My eyes swing left to the dreadlocked girl at the table for two by the window, one of those Penguin Classics in one hand, canary-colored cup of Joe in the other.

  I take the empty seat and lean back. “Mindy, my dear. It’s been a while. Don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind?”

  I may not remember most of the girls I sleep with, but I never forget the ones I don’t. Mindy here’s track and field, one of those hemp-packing sexual free spirits you just know is going to suck your dick like a paper straw. We flirted lightly, but it never became anything more. Stung a little, I’ll admit, but time heals all as my father would say.

  Sitting there, I’m surprised any kind of sexual attraction I once felt towards her has fallen away. My dick’s only hard for one thing at the moment. Any harder, in fact, and I’ll flip the fucking table.

  I slather on a thick grin. “I hear you’ve been asking around campus for a particular brunette.” She takes a sip of her coffee, watching me over the rim. She places it down. “And FYI, Shakira’s natural hair color is dark black, so you’re a bit off there, sunshine.”

  How the fuck? But I keep my expression in check and play it cool. “So you know what I’m looking for. Question is, do you know where I can find it?”

  “Say I do know your girl, say I know exactly where to find her, what are you going to do with said information?”

  I lean forward, lowering my voice. “Let’s just say she’s the one who got away.”

  Mindy laughs, her coffee rocking against the melamine of the table. “The mighty Peyton King let one get away. What is the world coming to?”

  I lean back, palms out. “Help me out here.” I clasp my hands together. “Please.”

  Mindy pulls her lips together, nodding. “Manners and everything. You are desperate
.”

  I give the her the classic King puppy eyes and she starts to break, rolling her own and slapping her book down on the table. “Oh, why the hell not? She could do with a good dicking.”

  “So?”

  “She’s at the paper office.”

  I’m confused. “The… library?”

  “The college paper, dumbass, the Crimson.”

  “But I didn’t think she was a student?”

  “She’s not, graduated early from somewhere downstate.”

  I stand with such haste I almost knock over the chair. “You’ve been most helpful.”

  “Just promise me you’ll show her a good time.”

  I pause in the middle of the café, announcing, “Baby, I’ll make her come so hard she’ll leave the fucking planet, mark my words.”

  “Fuck yeah!” A fellow ball player rises from his chair. I connect with his high five.

  I salute the rest of the stunned idiots, winking in Mindy’s direction. “Later, fuckers. Destiny calls.”

  *

  I check my watch. That little prick of a hand is ticking its ass off. I was supposed to be at practice five minutes ago. Mooney’s going to have kittens if I don’t show soon. It won’t be a BFW. It’ll be a BFR.

  Big. Fucking. Reaming.

  I’m sitting outside the college paper building, a brutalist concrete structure you expect grey-toned communists to march out of at any moment. But I’m not sitting here waiting for Stalin.

  My cock perks up at the mere thought of Erin, at that snarky expression of hers shifting gears the moment I fill her.

  I was assured by chatty Kathy at the front desk she’d be down in ten minutes.

  It’s been close to an hour.

  When she finally shows, emerging backlit through the doors, I can’t help but smile, standing to meet her.

  She’s wearing a cream sweater and jeans, face free of the mile-deep makeup most girls on campus wear. She could so easily come across as plain, but I see the diamond lurking below, that glimmer of greatness waiting to be revealed as soon as I shed her clothes and get my hands on that snug body of hers.

  But more than anything, it’s her eyes that undo me. She’s not just staring at me. She’s stabbing into my soul, deep into that most mysterious of realms I share with no one and nothing.

  I restrain myself from reaching forward to take her right now, bending her over the bike rack and fucking her into oblivion.

  I don’t think the pigeons would approve.

  “You always keep people waiting?” I query.

  She pulls up a good four feet away, arms crossing. Her left eye twitches. Is she nervous? “Not everyone,” she replies cryptically.

  “So I’m special?”

  Her arms unknot ever so slightly. Yes, baby, come to Peyton. “Oh, you’re special all right,” she says, that telltale snark returning.

  “How about you tell me more over a drink?”

  Something crosses over her face I can’t quite pin down, which is even weirder, because I usually own this shit.

  It’s a second before she regains her composure. “That’s your best line? Really?”

  I take a step closer, a breeze blowing at the back of her hair, lifting it and providing the faintest hint of honey. “I’d ask if you’re my appendix because I’ve got a gut feeling I should take you out, but I don’t think that would work now, would it?”

  And finally, I’m breaking through. There’s the barest hint of a smile, but it’s building. “And then you’ll tell me you’re a weatherman, that I can expect a few inches tonight, right?”

  I look down at my dick before catching her eyes. “A few? Come now… or later. Your choice.”

  The eyes are rolling but the smile is growing. It’s a beautiful fucking sight. She runs her hair back over her ears, double-handed, and I know I’m in. “You are absolutely god damn ridiculous. You do know that, right?”

  “I know you want to say yes, out of curiosity if nothing else.”

  She places her weight on one leg. “You saw that in the crystal ball you keep under your bed?”

  God, she’s just feeding these lines to me. It’s too easy. “That’s not the only thing I…”

  “…keep under your bed. Yeah, yeah, I get it. And what if I do say yes? Am I going to regret it?”

  I place my hand on my heart, a proper Boy Scout. “Satisfaction guaranteed.”

  “You sound like a car commercial.”

  I clap my hands together for the second time today. “Take me for a spin. That’s all I’m asking. There’s no obligation to buy.”

  Silence. Thinking face. Fuck me, she’s cute.

  She puts a slender finger up. “One, get it, one drink.”

  I nod. “You have my word.”

  She checks her wrist — an old Apple iWatch, at least two generations gone, with new, albeit cheapest on offer, band, which means she’s frugal. “Eight? Steam Room?”

  “Works for me,” I reply, which is an interesting choice of words considering I’ve never worked so hard for anything in my life.

  She does an awkward sort of wave-slash-curtsy playing it off as casual but giving away that nervous demeanor I just know is waiting to be fucked free.

  “See you,” she says.

  I remain confident. “And you.”

  I take in her ass as she walks back to the office. Even those catalogue jeans can’t hide the sheer symmetrical perfection of it.

  “There’s gold in them hills,” I tell myself, smiling with the thought of what’s to come.

  “The fucking motherlode.”

  *

  “Twenty fucking minutes, King!”

  Coach is livid.

  “What do you think I’m running here? A fucking Burger King you can drop into whenever you want?”

  Given his fast-expanding waistline, I can see where the analogy has come from, but I hold my tongue lest it be wrenched free of my mouth.

  The poor bastard’s shaking his head so hard I’m kind of concerned he’s going to fall into some kind of seizure. “Get over there with the others but know you’re going to be putting in an extra twenty at the end of this. I don’t care if you’ve got a date with Dolly Parton. I’m going to work your ass so hard today you’ll be shitting blocks of sweat. Comprende?”

  I’m doing my best to contain myself but seeing him like this only makes me want to laugh in his face. “Yes, Coach.”

  He shoos me off. “What are you waiting for, a fucking haircut? Go!”

  I jog off to meet the others in the middle of the field. They’re running pass-blocking drills. I pull my helmet strap tight, bringing my arm up just in time to catch a flying ball.

  “You find your unicorn?” calls Tony, picking up another ball from the pile.

  I take my position, squatting low. “You bet your ass I did.”

  Another ball rockets into my arms. “And?”

  I fire it back at him waiting for Coach to start shouting at us to get on with the drill. “And come tomorrow she’ll be hobbling her way around campus.”

  “My boy,” smiles Tony, taking the throw.

  Practice runs smoother today. I don’t know if it’s the anticipation of meeting Erin later, but I’m fired up. It doesn’t go unnoticed by Coach, who pulls me aside after I’ve done my twenty minutes of push-up penance.

  The field’s empty. It’s just the two of us.

  “That was some good shit, King. I want more of that, you hear me?”

  I take off my helmet, let its welcome weight sit against my hip. “Yes, Coach.”

  “There’s a lot riding on this next game, son. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I’ve had offers, hard offers, from a couple of pro teams. They’ve got their noses sniffing around the entire state. So, no more screwing around, got it? You better be breathing football twenty-four seven.”

  I’ve heard it all before, pay it as much mind as ever. “Got it.”

  “Good,” Coach smiles. “Hit the showers. You smell like a damn wet dog.” />
  CHAPTER FIVE

  ERIN

  I spend the rest of my time at the office staring at a blank screen, the little paperclip mascot in Microsoft Word popping in from time to time, daring me to actually put something down. But every time I go to write I’m pulled back to Peyton ‘God’s Gift to Women Worldwide’ King.

  I’ve convinced myself because my bubble tea is green it must have health benefits, but it sure tastes like a sugar-fest going down. I sip at it while I close Word and pull up a web browser, bringing up Peyton’s social media. It’s a rat’s nest of pec pics and girls gone wild, the occasional football photo or quote from Tom Brady. It doesn’t unearth anything new.

  I move to Peyton’s three brothers — Titus and Phoenix, juniors, fraternal twins, and big on campus in both baseball and basketball respectively. Then there’s Nolan, a sophomore who’s all the rage in the rink. Combined, the Kings dominate Crestfall Academy. Regardless of what the academy says, money talks, and the Kings are the campus Kardashians.

  My chair wheezes as I lean back and reach for a hamburger squishy — one of maybe twenty lined up on my desk. It’s something about the feel of memory foam, the way it pushes back against your fingers. It helps with the stress of the job. Hell, I squeezed one of poor things so hard last week it basically became a hockey puck.

  I need this story to be perfect. People have gone from this place to the Times, the Globe… It can happen if you put in the hard yards, and boy am I prepared to do whatever it takes.

  You sure about that? my head interjects, a shot of Peyton with two string bikini-clad girls on his shoulders flickering on my screen.

  Well, almost anything.

  I let my mind wander. I try not to dwell on the sex, considering instead if it’s possible Peyton, or any of these cliché college guys, could ever be anything other than a one-night deal.

  What do you think, Erin? He’s suddenly going to join you watching world cinema? He’ll bring you breakfast in bed, blueberry pancakes like Mom used to make? Help you pick out a nice shade of lilac for the nursery?

  Un-fucking-likely.

  I snap myself out of it so hard my head spins, my chest slamming against the front of the desk as the chair lurches back into position.

  Hell no.